Remember, three things will smooth over virtually all resentment over delays:
1. A simple apology (just to be polite).
2. A valid reason (“I was so busy smoking weed and mastrubating to porn I lost track of time for two whole days” is… less than valid. ^_- )
3. Tell us when we can expect the next update (so we’re not checking twice a day in the interim, making ourselves frustrated and blaming you for it. :P)
3a. Be certain you hit that new deadline you announce. Schedules get thrown of sometimes, because life happens, and folks understand that. Miss the NEW deadline and people start questioning your reliability.

You guys want to support him and that’s great–fans like you are what make doing this sort of work fun–but he’s doing good for his future by resuming the strip as fast as he can… that is, if he plans to make money do it. Consistency is everything; long term, not spurts.

I hope someday he can get ahead and not worry about these one strip delays because it will have a huge impact on his long term success.

Please know I speak from experience. I like the comic, so I’m sharing the wisdom I’ve gained myself.

It’s only as stressful as I make it. And to be honest, I kind of realized awhile ago that there’s never going to be “day job” money in what I do here. I simply try to hold myself to a standard of regular updates because… well, because reasons, essentially.

I understand what you mean, sometimes its the principle in the matter and we are only competing against ourselves.
That being said you take all the time you need. You do great work and I would rather wait for your best then settle. And you have been reliable enough to prove that you are worth waiting for.

I agree with you. For instance, look at Goblins. The creator constantly gets bashes for never, ever having consistent updates like he says he will and he’s lost a ton of fans because they just gave up hope of him ever updating.

As it is now, he updates MAYBE once every two weeks or so and he suffers for it and his fans suffer for it. He’s constantly stressed out over it and he’s frantic and disorganized because of it.

Then you’ve got Looking for Group and Least I Could Do which update on time every time. That dude is chill and relaxed and no one ever chews him out over deadlines. He’s a very mellow person and doesn’t have to worry about stress over his comic or letting it interfere with his life.

Goblins’ problem isn’t the lack of regular updates so much as promises being made and then not being kept. THunt does it with the best of intentions — he thoroughly means to deliver the comic when he says he will, but he’s proven time and again that… that just… isn’t how his mind works. Missing a deadline stresses him out, so he makes even more ambitious promises then can’t keep those either. That’s what’s lost him so many fans. Well, and the complete nervous breakdown didn’t help, nor did the card game debacle, but he seems to have mostly recovered from both those disasters. (Not me, I’m still a regular reader, and he does still have enough loyal readers invested in his story to shoot him back up to the top of TWC pretty quickly, as soon as he asked.) He’s doing better these days. Patreon’s been good for him. I’m okay with the slow pace, as long as he keeps going.

There are plenty of highly-respected comics that don’t update regularly. Look at Lackadaisy, and if you think jaw-dropping art-quality is required to pull it off, look at Order of the Stick. Thing is, these artists tend to leave it as “You’ll get it when you get it. I’m making no promises.” People are okay with updates being irregular if they know they’re going to be irregular. They tap into an RSS link, maybe, or they just visit the site from time to time being pleased when there is an update and when there isn’t, shrugging and being glad the artist got a bit of ad revenue. What bothers them is the disappointment of coming to the page really expecting an update and not getting one.

Now, that’s bound to occur from time to time in any comic. People do understand that artists have lives, and that sometimes other things just have to be attended to. It’s just that if it happens too often, experienced webcomic readers start to worry that the artist may be losing enthusiasm, which is often a precursor to the comic dying a lingering death, its story forever incomplete… as happened just recently with Judecca. (Intriguing story, beautiful, subtle art, but the artist just stopped wanting to tell it. It updated less and less often, and now is officially dead.)

I dunno, I’d still argue Goblins suffered heavily from the lack of updates. True, it may be because of the promises of updates not being kept at the core of things, but I firmly believe that a lot of it has to do with that the updates are sporadic as heck. A lot of people initially just said, “Oh okay, yeah, I’ll check back later.” but after weeks and months of no updates and not even a blog note, I think they genuinely forgot about it. Then you check back randomly one day and realize ONE update has happened and you’re like, “Oh cool and there’s a blog note too.” but then another month goes by of radio silence. Then, bing, an update, an update roughly every week for about 3 weeks. Oh then 3 more weeks without an update.

You know, I never bought that excuse, because it’s free, it always rang falsely with me. Yes, he is doing it for free so it’s cool and all but what is the person’s underlying motives? In Dave’s case, he admitted he didn’t expect much money and is doing it for him which is wonderful. Makes me think of it as a hobby so he’s sharing what he loves with us. Means a lot to me.

Then you get the guys that are doing it to get their work out there and show off their skills as a resume and to get noticed. Now these guys are trying to work it into a full time job. They should be held to a higher standard than the guys that want to just tell a story regardless if the wanna be a pro is giving it to us for free. Because the people they want noticing them is holding them to a higher standard you can bet on that.

Selkie is great, wonderful, I actually enjoy it more than these “professional” comics so don’t get me wrong. I am talking more intent than anything. Of course if you want a full time job at Marvel or DC, that’s cool too Dave.

At one point, I did have aspirations of becoming a full-time illustrator/cartoonist. And I know it’s at least a possibility, several webcomics out there make a day-to-day salary off their strips.

But I came to the conclusion a couple years ago that I’m not likely to be one of them. Between getting zero responses when I sent off illustration packets to various agencies and companies that work with illustrators, not having the personal funds to do more than maybe one convention a year (if even that), and a near-total lack of sales when I had the e-store running last year, I basically just lost my steam on the entire premise of doing Selkie and Sue and Kathryn as any sort of day job.

And I’m not really operating under any sort of delusion that I’m some kind of diamond-in-the-rough secretly badass ultra-artist. I’m C grade, at best. Hell even some of my own readers have commented openly that they don’t care for the artwork but come for the story.

At some point you just need to take things as they are. Selkie and Sue and Kathryn will probably never get any bigger than they are, and will probably never grow big enough for self-employment status. If it hasn’t taken off after almost six years, I doubt it ever will. But I make enough off the ad revenue to pay my car loans. You all basically bought my car for me. Lot of up-and-comers don’t even get that much.

I’m grateful for what I have, but realistic about where I can go, I guess.

I think you’re a damn good artist, admittedly to be fair amateur, but you are a damn sight better than I. And I know what you mean. I like to write, but I have no illusions I will ever be at a level higher than the point I am at right now. The thing is you gotta love the things in your life and as long as you are, that’s the key to happiness. Some of the best artists are miserable and just never really enjoy what they do.

When people tell you they stick with Selkie for the story, don’t dismiss that as somehow falling short. You’re an A++ grade storyteller.

It’s true, probably you’re never going to get a day job drawing for Marvel. Your art doesn’t have the finished commercial quality they’re looking for. But as time goes on and you get more practice, you’re getting better and better at illustrating your own story, the story of Selkie.

You may occasionally be not quite sure how long a person’s arm ought to be, but boydamnhowdy can you ever ace body language and facial expression. I have been repeatedly amazed by how much affect you can pack into such a simplistic art style. Like, a paragraph of info in the slant of an eyebrow. That’s visual storytelling.